"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development."
--Aristotle
- The history department at The Ohio State University is one of the largest in the country. Here at the Lima extended campus, we have three full-time faculty members whose expertise covers a broad range of exciting fields of history. From the US Civil War to the French Revolution to the history of Brazil, you are sure to find something that interests you here.
- The history department at Lima offers a four-year program in History leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree. The department also welcomes and serves non-majors who are simply interested in the past or who wish to satisfy their university requirements.
- Here at Lima, we have our own History Club, and our own branch of Phi Alpha Theta, the national honor society in history. For more information about the Lima History Club, see our History Club page, and for more about Phi Alpha Theta, click on our Phi Alpha Theta page.
- If you'd like to learn more about the many courses we offer or about the requirements for a history major or minor, or to find out about our faculty members or information about careers in history, please click on one of the links in the menu above.
Some more thoughts on the question: "What is History?"
- "History is science, no less and no more." J.B. Bury
- "History is a people’s memory, and without memory man is demoted to the lower animals." Malcolm X
- "History is now strictly organized, powerfully disciplined, but it possesses only a modest educational value and even less conscious social purpose." J. H. Plumb
- "History is more or less bunk." Henry Ford
- "History is an argument without end." Peter Geyl
- "History: an account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools." Ambrose Bierce
Clio, the Muse of History:
- "Clio . . . to thee, O Muse, has been vouchsafed the power to know the hearts of the gods and the ways by which things come to be." Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica (Roman epic C1st A.D.)
- "Begin thou, unforgetting Clio, for all the ages are in thy keeping, and all the storied annals of the past." Statius, Thebaid (Roman epic C1st A.D.)